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THE PASSAGE OF THE ARNOLD 

EXPEDITION THROUGH 

SKOWHEGAN 



The Passage of the Arnold 

Expedition Through 

Skozvhegan 




By Louise Helen Coburn 



Read at the unveiling of the Marker erected by 
Eunice Farnsworth Chapter, Daughters of the American 
Revolution, on the High School lot, October 4, 1912. 







19 2 2 



Gifts 

3&a Sf523 



Passage of tKe Arnold Expedition 
ThrougK Sko^hegan 



In the fall of 1775 an army of eleven hundred Re- 
volutionary soldiers, traveling up the Kennebec valley on 
foot and by bateau, passed across the tract of land we now 
know as Skowhegan. It was the Arnold Expedition on 
its way to surprise and capture Quebec. This expedition 
represented an attempt on the part of Gen. Washington to 
carry the war in its first season directly into the enemy's 
country, and hy ol^taining possession of the strongest 
British fortress upon the continent to throw the enemy 
on the defensive, and give to himself the advantage of 
position, and perhaps to the war an early close. It was 
confidently expected, and there was uuich ground for the 
hope, that after an American victory the people of the 
province of Quebec would flock to the colonial cause, with 
the result that the fourteenth colony would add its strength 
to the thirteen in their struggle for independence, a result 
^\hich was regarded by some of the wisest leaders of the 
Revolution as an indispensalile condition of success. 

The Expedition to Quebec was a natural corollary of 
the capture of Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and Benedict 
Arnold in May, wliich gave the colonial forces control of 
the "lack door" of the country. Gen. Washington, upon 
taking command of the army in Cambridge in July, re- 
solved up<m an aggressive campaign. A body of troops 
under Gen. Schuyler, later under Montgomery, was to pro- 
ceed up Lake Champlain against St. Johns on the Richelieu, 
and asrainst IMontreal, and another expedition was to pierce 
the wilderness of Maine and surprise Quebec. The two 
armies would effect a junction, and Canada would be ours. 
It was a project both daring and sagacious, and was exe- 
cuted with fidelity even unto death and with desperate 



valor. It resulted in disaster and failure, and Canada 
was lost to the Union. Two years later the army of 
Bourgoyne came down through the gate of Lake Champ- 
lain, and on the field of Saratoga was fought the decisive 
battle of the war. 

There was a trail across ]\Iaine which had often been 
traveled by Canadian Indians, and which a few years 
before this time had been followed by an English engineer. 
Col. John Montresor, the record of whose journey was in 
the hands of Arnold and probably also in those of "Wash- 
ington, describing in detail the route by way of the Ken- 
nebec, Dead River, Lake Megantic, and the Chaudiere. 
The route seemed practicable, and the enterprise highly 
promising. 

For leader of the expedition the choice of Washington 
fell on a young Connecticut officer who had just arrived 
at Cambridge fresh from brilliant exploits at Ticonderoga 
and on northern Lake Champlain, and whose buoyant 
enthusiasm and reckless courage seemed to the Head of the 
army valuable to he used in his countrj^'s service. It 
is evident that Washington was favorably impressed with 
Arnold's qualities of leadership, and personally attracted 
by the man. Arnold was at this time in his thirty-fifth 
year, and is described by Judge Henry, who reached the 
first house in Canada with the Expedition on his seven- 
teenth birthday, as a short, handsome man, of a florid 
complexion, stoutly made, brave even to temerity, and be- 
loved by the soldiery. 

It is not our province to follow the career of Benedict 
Arnold beyond this Expedition, in which he proved himself 
resourceful, courageous and steadfast. Call no man happy 
until he is dead! If Arnold, like Montgomery, had been 
killed instead of wounded on the ramparts of Quebec, or 
if he had been killed instead of wounded in one of his 
fiery charges at Saratoga, his name would now occupy a 
shining place in American history. 



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The Expedition was composed of ten companies of 
infantry made up of selected men from Washington's 
army, then engaged in the siege of Boston, sturdy Con- 
tinentals mostly from Connecticut, IMassachusetts, Rhode 
Island, and New Hampshire, and three companies of rifle- 
men from Virginia and Pennsylvania, these last the flower 
of the Continental army. Including officers, 1050 men 
were enrolled at Cambridge. These with the addition 
of Colburn's artificers from Gardinerston, and volunteers 
from settlements along the way, made a total commonly 
reckoned at 1100 men. 

The soldiers marched from Cambridge to Newbury- 
port, sailing from there for the Kennebec September 19, 
1775. On September 22d they arrived at Gardinerston, 
now Pittston, where two hundred bateaux which had been 
constructed by Major Reuben Colburn in his shipyard were 
waiting for them. A few days were passed at Fort West- 
em, the present Augusta, nine miles up the river from 
the shipyard, in making final preparations for the journey 
through the wilderness. When everything was ready, 
the bateaux were loaded with the ammunition and pro- 
visions and various supplies, and the army set forth up 
the river, some of the men walking up the trail and some 
rowing or poling the bateaux. The four divisions left 
Fort Western on the days from September 25th to the 29th, 
and arrived at what is now Skowhegan from September 
29th to October 4th. 

In the autumn of 1775 this place was both essentially 
like and strangely unlike what it is today. There were 
no churches, no factories, no schoolhouses, no homes or 
not more than one or two within the limits of the present 
village. A rude mill in process of construction on the 
Island gave the only hint of the future wheels of industry. 
But the river circled the rockbound isle and rushed head- 
long from both channels into the deep gorge below as tire- 
lessly as it does today. To west and north on the horizon, 



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visible from every elevation, rose the purple undulations 
of the Dead River and Franklin County mountains; and 
the dome of the yet unnamed Bigelow hill to the south 
beheld then as now through the clear autumn air the 
Presidential range, the highest peak of which had not yet 
received the name of the father of his country. 

In those years as in these the mayflower grew pink 
in April on the southern slopes, the columbine in May 
sprang gaily from the ledges of the riverside, in June or- 
chids bloomed in the bog which covered much of the 
present Eussell, High and Court streets, in July bluebells 
dotted the pebbly shores, and in August the goldenrod 
made trail and river bank glorious. But in this week of 
late September and early October the season of blossoms 
was passed. Only a few belated asters lingered in shelter- 
ed places, and the yellow stars of the witch-hazel gleamed 
along the brooksides, while bittersweet swung its rich clust- 
ers from the denuded branches of beech and birch at the 
mouth of the Wesserunsett. 

The beauty of the trees along the shore excited the 
admiration of the travelers, who mentioned by name many 
which grow here today. The red oak, the white birch, 
and the Norway pine were then as now features of the 
river bank, and specimens of each of them of gigantic 
size must have been common. Yellow birch, rock maple 
and beech, mixed with spruce, fir and hemlock, formed the 
hillside covers; cedar and hackmatack flourished in the 
swamps, and elm and butternut upon the alluvial levels. 
But the sandy plains which bear away to the north and 
south beyond the hills that border the valley were the na- 
tural ground of the white pine which monopolized the 
country for mile on mile. One of our citizens remembers 
seeing a pine log hauled into the village which measured 
five feet in diameter, and a glance at the dado boards of 
some of the older houses in town shows the great size of 
lumber available from the vicinity when they were built. 



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Through these primeval pine forests ranged gigantic 
moose with huge branching antlers. One of the travelers 
was informed by the settlers that moose had recently 
largely increased, and had entirely driven away the deer 
that used to be abundant in the Kennebec valley, and 
made themselves masters of the forest. Bears prowled 
about the settlers' cabins, and beavers plied their trade in 
the streams. In the river salmon came every season climb- 
ing up the rapids and waterfalls. 

The earliest settlement of this town had been made 
only three years before about three miles down the river, 
where Joseph Weston and Peter Heywood had cleared land, 
built their log cabins and brought their families in 1772. 
There were at this time some half a dozen families on the 
two sides of the river, and the clearings made by them, 
together with the two large islands in the river between, 
which had been previously cleared by the Indians, made 
the only breaks in the continuous line of forest. The 
Weston and Heywood clearings were on the western bank, 
and their log cabins stood near together beside the trail 
coming from Ticonic Falls. It was then supposed that 
the village would grow at the place of this settlement, 
which was sometimes called Heywoodstown or Howards- 
town, but more commonly Canaan, under which name the 
whole region was later incorporated. 

Between the settlement at Old Canaan, where many 
of the army camped for the night, and Skowhegan Falls 
lay swift water and rocks and shoals up to the Great Eddy 
where with triple whirlpool the river makes its sharp turn ; 
then came dark rushing water through the narrow deep 
defile, more dangerous at that time by reason of ledges in 
the middle which have since been blasted out. These 
ledges at the entrance of the gorge going up formed what 
was known by lumbermen as the "barn-door." Having 
passed up through the gorge the boatmen would meet the 
headlong current, fuller and perhaps stronger before the 



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dams were built, sweeping down from the double water- 
fall, between whose white lines of foam projected the 
black cliffs of Skowhegan Island. 

Col. Montresor, descending the Kennebec in July 1761, 
described it in his Journal, beginning at Norridgewock, 
as follows: "It now makes a noble appearance, very- 
broad and deeper than any we have yet met with. Its 
current is very gentle to the Nine ]\Iile Falls ; here it preci- 
pitates itself with great fury over high rocks, and being 
confined by high rocky banks, runs a quarter of a mile with 
vast rapidity, below which it forms a large basin, and then 
directs its course to the south." Nine Mile Falls means 
Skowhegan Falls. 

William Allen writes that just below the falls there was 
a rock of bluish flint in a conical form, five feet in height, 
and ten or twelve in diameter at the base, which was 
scalloped out down to the water's edge. The guide of 
the Steele party, Nehemiah Getchel, had been informed 
that the Indians of former times had obtained from it their 
spear and arrow-heads or points. 

The island which forms the heart of our village is 
shaped like an egg lying southeast and northwest, with 
the point of the egg northwest. The northern half of 
the Island is solid rock, with the ledges running northeast 
and southwest. To the northwest up the river the rocks 
are low and jagged; to north and northeast precipitous 
cliffs descend to the river bed, while to the south alluvial 
slopes drop gently down into the south channel. 

The general course of the Kennebec through the pres- 
ent village is southwest — northeast, except for the two 
channels enclosing the Island, which run about northwest 
— southeast. 

Northeast, looking down the river, there is a slight em- 
brasure between the cliffs, with a small beach of broken 
stone. This formed of old the landing place for Indians 
coming up in their canoes. Difficult of access between 



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the rushing waters of the two falls, with the ledge rising 
twenty-five or thirty feet above it, up which the boats 
and their contents must be lifted and pulled, it formed the 
only approach to the island carry which was a necessary 
part of the up-river voyage. The old Indian trail, which 
was followed by Arnold's men, came up just behind where 
the foundry stands, and along its north side (just about the 
middle of the Central Maine Power Company's lot) passing 
diagonally across the High School lot and that of the Con- 
gregational Church. These two lots are on the highest 
land of the Island, the highest point of which was original- 
ly the ledge under the southeast comer of the old Jack 
Weston house — practically the central point of the island. 
The avenue has been cut down, but the lots to the west 
remain at the original elevation. Further west there was 
a high ledge running west in front of and under the old 
dry-house (where the Central Maine transformers now are). 
The highest part of this, which was directly in front of 
where the dry-house stands, was blasted away and used 
for the construction of the building, in which the interesting 
and vari-colored slate rock of the Island and of the river 
channel as well may be observed. This ledse dropped 
abruptly down into a bog-hole at the south, and still fur- 
ther south was another ledge w^hich dropped into another 
bog-hole. The trail followed the high land, keeping south 
of the big ledge and steering between the bog-hole and 
the more southern ledge, and came down to the back chan- 
nel by a gentle slope between the ledges, near where the 
later roadway went down, just northwest of the old Mill- 
lot line. Years later, when there were half a dozen houses 
on the Island, part of them on the road between the bridges, 
Eusebius Weston's where the High School stands, Benja- 
min Hartwell 's where the engine house is, Stephen Weston 's 
now Mrs. Bacon's, John W. Weston's around the 
corner, William Weston's to the west on the Mill lot, and 
Samuel Boardman's the toll-taker — houses filled with many 



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children — the women of these homes used to take their 
clothes down to this low bank between the ledges, past 
hieh rippled the crystal w^ater of the south channel, build 
tires for their iron boilers, set up their tubs, and spend 
a sociable IMonday morning under the shade of the great 
pines over the family washings. 

Launching their boats from this slope, the voyagers 
would make with a northward slant across the current to 
the opposite bank, and hug that bank going up, to avoid 
the strong current that sets into the sluiceway. Making 
a detour to escape the ledge that extends from the point, 
they would follow closely the southern shore where lay the 
quieter waters, and would find in the eddies lying along 
the bank. Ward Eddy above the ice-house, Hartwell Eddy / 

near the Osburn farm, and Webb Eddy near what is now 
the John Weston farm, still places for landing. Several 
parties seem to have camped about here. From one of 
these eddies they seem to have turned their course across 
the river, transporting the walkers, for the journey to 
Norridgewock Falls was made on the north side. 

No house was upon the Island at the time of Arnold's 
passage, but a camping ground had been cleared by the 
Indians upon the high land to the center and the 
southeastern section, which made a convenient resting 
place for the weary men, and a place for looking over and 
caulking their bateaux. Tradition says they camped there, 
and in all probability a part of them did, but several of 
the journals say they camped upon the mainland, and some 
of the parties went up the river half a mile to camp, while 
some made the passage in the daytime and camped at 
Norridgewock. There was the beginning of a mill, sit- 
uated possibly on the south channel just above the Island 
abutment of the south bridge, or more probably on the same 
spot as the later mill built by Peter Heywood. The sluice- 
way came directly across the end of the island, cutting otf 
the point of the egg, and making of that a small island. A 



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big ledge came up in the middle of the entrance which was 
afterwards blasted away to form the mill-pond. There 
were two falls in the sluiceway, which carried quite a 
volume of water, and constituted an effective power before 
the dams were built. The mill was constructed across 
the sluiceway, with one wall upon the main island and the 
other on the little one. 

The rude structure that was found in 1775 belonged, 
says Captain Thayer, to Mr. Copelin, a name by which 
he elsewhere refers to the Major Colburn who had the 
shipyard at Gardinerston, and made the bateaux. This 
enterprising pioneer had evidently extended his business 
up the river into our primitive settlement. 

The trail across the Island lay magnetically east and 
west, and measured in a straight line forty-four rods. With 
the winding necessary to avoid bog-holes and ledges, it 
would not come far from the sixty rods mentioned by most 
of the records. 

The officers and men of the Arnold Expedition seem 
to have been ready of pen, and many of them kept jour- 
nals of their experiences. I have found in sixteen of these 
journals a record of the passage of the army through this 
vicinity. 

It was on the 24th or 25th of September that the ex- 
ploring party under Lieut. Steele passed through Skow- 
hegan, bringing to the settlers probably the first informa- 
tion of the coming of the army. Col. Arnold had sent Lieut. 
Steele to reconnoitre the way to Lake Megantic, and ascer- 
tain the course of the stream emptying into it. The 
party consisted of eleven men, including two guides, and 
they traveled in two canoes. Their passage was a swift 
one, and there is no record of a stop at this place, but it 
is mentioned that they met two men near the falls from 
whom they obtained two fresh beaver tails in exchange for 
pork. Another exploring party under Lieut. Church, 
which was sent out to note the courses and distances to 



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Dead River, passed through here about the same time. 

On September 29th, the first division of the army 
arrived at Skowhegan, having left Fort Western on the 
25th. This consisted of the three companies of riflemen, 
led by the huge Virginian, Captain Daniel Morgan. It 
was Captain Morgan who, after Arnold was disabled, led 
the desperate rush upon the barriers in the assault on 
Quebec. Later in the war he was one of the most brilliant 
of Washington's generals, did conspicuous service at Sara- 
toga and on many other battlefields, and was the hero of 
the famous battle of Cowpens. His own company had 
marched from Virginia to Cambridge, six hundred miles 
in three weeks. The other two companies of riflemen were 
from Pennsylvania, and were commanded by Captain Smith 
and Captain Hendricks. The latter, whom Judge Henry 
describes as of mild and beautiful countenance, was one of 
those who fell in the assault on Quebec. These riflemen 
had been trained in border Indian warfare, and their 
marksmanship with the crude weapons of their day was 
extraordinary. Two women, wives of soldiers, accom- 
panied the riflemen, and shared all the hardships of the 
way. 

This first division had orders to proceed with all speed 
so as to open up the trail for the others, and they carried 
less baggage than the rest. So well did they fulfill their 
commission that they covered the forty miles between 
Augusta and Skowhegan Falls in four days. It was heavy 
work pulling the bateaux up against the stream, mostly 
by poling. Uusually four men propelled each bateau, 
and the others walked along the shore. The river was 
full of rocks and shoals, so that the men were obliged to 
get into the water to haul the boats over, and the bottom 
was so uneven that they were sometimes up to their chins 
in water, while another writer says they were obliged to 
nearly swim. 

One of the diarists, George Morison of Hendricks' 



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company, comments here: "This was not the worst of 
our distresses, for many of the bateaux were so badly 
constructed that whether in or out of them we were wet. 
Could we have then come within reach of the villains who 
constructed these crazy things, they would fully have ex- 
perienced the effects of our vengeance. Many of them 
were little better than common rafts, and in several of them 
our provisions and camp equipage were much injured. 
Avarice, or a desire to destroy us, perhaps both, must 
have been their motives— they could have had none else. 
Did they not know that their doings were crimes— that 
they were cheating their country, and exposing its defend- 
ers to additional sufferings and to death?" 

Another writer, Abner Stocking says: "We encoun- 
tered these hardships and fatigues with great courage 
and perseverance for the zeal we felt in the cause. When 
night came on, wet and fatigued as we were, we had to 
encamp on the cold ground. It was at this time that we 
were inclined to think of the comfortable accommodations 
we had left at home." 

It was evening of the 29th that the riflemen arrived 
at Cohegan Falls, which was the second carrying-place 
of their voyage, Ticonic Falls having been the first. Stock- 
ing describes the carry as follows: "Though this was 
only sixty rods over, it occasioned much delay and great 
fatigue. We had to ascend a ragged rock, near on a 
hundred feet in height and almost perpendicular. Though 
it seemed as though we could hardly ascend it without any 
burden, we succeeded in dragging our bateaux and bag- 
gage up it." 

Morgan's men camped on the night of the 29th upon 
the Island or perhaps a part of them on the main land west 
of the carry, and the next day they carried their bateaux 
and baggage across, which took so much of the day that 
they poled up only five miles before camping. This 
camp ground of the 30th must have been the level bank 



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just this side of Norridgewock village on the north side. 
One writer says he went three miles, but he may have 
made too low an estimate, or his boat's crew may have been 
hindered and stopped two miles short of the rest. 

AVrites Abner Stocking of the journey of September 
30th : ' ' After getting over the carrying-place, we found 
the water more still. We proceeded five miles and at sun- 
down encamped in a most delightful wood, where I thought 
I could have spent some time agreeably in solitude, in 
contemplating the works of natvire. The forest was 
stripped of its verdure but still appeared to me beautiful. 
I thought that though we were in a thick wilderness, iin- 
inhabited by human beings, yet we were as much in the 
immediate presence of our divine protector as in the crowd- 
ed city." 

The second division of the army included the com- 
panies of Captains Thayer, Topham and Hubbard, and 
was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Greene 
and Major Bigelow. All these officers made a record of 
distinguished service later in the war. This division left 
Fort Western September 26, and on the evening of the 
29th reached the settlement at Old Canaan, three miles 
down the river, where they camped near the homes of 
Weston and Heywood, and perhaps a part of them on 
Great Island opposite. Captain Thayer in his journal 
complained that it was beginning to be cold — it had been 
fine fall weather up to this time — so that they stopped on 
their march to make large fires and refresh themselves. 
Captain Thayer says: "The stream is very swift, which 
makes it difficult, and our bateaux leaky, besides the place 
being very shallow, which obliges our men to go into the 
river and haul the bateaux after them, which generally 
occupies three or four men, two of whom are at her head 
and one or two at her stern, which occasions a slow pro- 
gress. ' ' 

September 30th they came to Skowheean Falls — the 



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Captain spells it Squhegan, which is a little the queerest 
of all the spellings found, though we have in the differ- 
ent journals Cohegan, Cohigin, Schouhegan, Scohigin, Co- 
higgin, Scowhegan, Scohegan, Seunkhegon, Squhegan, 
Sou heagen and Sou heavyon. "They proceeded towards 
the Falls through rapid water," says Lieutenant Humph- 
rey. They camped on the main land opposite the island, 
probably about where the ice-house is, where the ground is 
low and level. 

Captain Thayer writes as follows : ' ' The carrying- 
place is across an island. Here is a mill erecting, (the 
property of Mr. Copelin), the worst constructed I ever saw. 
The people call this place Canaan; a Canaan, indeed! 
The land is good, the timber large and of various kinds, 
such as pine, oak, hemlock, and rock maple. Last night 
our clothes being wet were frozen a pane of glass thick, 
which proved very disagreeable, being obliged to lie in 
them. The land is very fine, and am thinking if worked 
up would produce any grain whatsoever. The people 
are courteous, and breathe nothing but liberty. Their 
produce, (they sell at an exorbitant price) consists of 
salted moose and deer, dried up like fish. They have 
salmon in abundance. The cataracts here are neither so 
high nor so rapid as those at the Fort, but narrow, which 
occasions the water below them to run very swift. The 
carrying-place is very difficult, occasioned by the height 
of the land, and more so, being obliged to carry our pro- 
visions and bateaux up a steep rocky precipice. Our 
men are as yet in very good spirits, considering they have 
to wade half the time, and our boats so villainously 
constructed and leaking so much that they are always wet. 
I would heartily wish the infamous constructors, who 
sought to satisfy their avaricious temper and fill their 
purses with the spoils of their country, may be obliged to 
trust to the mercy of others more treacherous than them- 



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selves, that they might judge the fear and undergo the just 
reward of their villainy." 

Lieutenant Humphrey says of Canaan: "Here is as 
good land as I ever saw ' ' ; and of that cold Saturday 
nigh1 : "It froze so hard as to freeze our wet clothes that 
we did not lie upon." 

A part of this division seems to have passed Sunday, 
October 1st, on the Island, for they were found there by 
Arnold when he went over in the afternoon. 

Colonel Arnold, after he had seen all the divisions of 
his army started, set out himself, leaving Fort Western 
September 29th in a bark canoe, accompanied by his sec- 
retary. Captain Eleazer Oswald, and probably by Indian 
boatmen. The canoe proving leaky he changed to a dug- 
out, which he calls a "pettiauger". At 10 a. m. on Sun- 
day they passed the seven and fifteen mile streams, and 
reached the little settlement of Canaan in time to dine 
at Joseph Weston 's, whose house was beside the river. 

Would we not like to know what kind of a Sunday 
dinner Eunice Famsworth Weston cooked and served for 
Benedict Arnold in her log cabin beside the Kennebec? 
Was there dried moose meat, or a fat beaver tail, or salmon 
from the river, or partridges shot by the boys along the 
trail? Did they have hominy made of home raised and 
home ground corn, or beans baked in the ashes? What- 
ever was upon the board it must have tasted good to the 
hungry voyagers who were not for many a long day to sit 
again for a Sunday dinner at a woman's table. 

Not tarrying over long at dinner, Arnold and Oswald 
reached the Falls at four o'clock, finding there two com- 
panies of the second division. They crossed the carrying- 
place — which Oswald estimates at one hundred rods — 
launched their boat, and proceeded up the river about 
five miles, arriving at eight o'clock at the Widow Warren's 
where they lodged. Between the Falls and the Widow's 



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they found the water quiet part of the way, but part of 
the way small falls and quick water 

The third division was commanded by Major IMeigs 
and consisted of the companies of Captains Dearborn, 
Ward, Hanchet, and Goodrich. Major Meigs had a not- 
able record later in the war. Captain Dearborn was in 
many battles of the war, and at its close settled in Gardi- 
ner. He was twice elected to Congress from the Ken- 
nebec district, was for eight years Secretary of War under 
Jefferson, senior Major-General of the U. S. army under 
Madison, and later U. S. Minister to Portugal. Captain 
Ward who also went t^rough +Jie war, was the grand 
father of Mrs. Julia Waid How^. 

This division left Fort Western September 27th. Major 
Meigs getting ahead of his command camped the night of 
October 1st at Canaan. In his journal he comments on 
the land he had passed that day as generally very good, 
the timber butternut, beech, hemlock, white pine, red 
cedar, etc. His record for the following day, Monday, 
October 2, is as follows : "In the morning proceeded up 
the river, and at ten o'clock arrived at Scohegin falls, 
where is a carrying-place of 250 paces, which lies across a 
small island in the river. Here I waited for my division 
to come up and encamped on the west side the river, 
opposite the island, with Captain Goodrich. It rained 
in the night. I turned out and put on my clothes and 
lay down again and slept well till morning." On Tues- 
day the Major proceeded up the river to Norridgewock, and 
on his way called at a house where he saw a child four- 
teen month old, the first white child born in Norridge- 
wock. A little below Norridgewock his bateau filled 
with water going up the falls, and he lost his kettle, butter, 
and sugar, a loss not to be replaced. 

In the meantime the division was one day behind its 
commander, and spent Monday night at Canaan. Haskell 
of Ward's company says they hauled up the boats at Me- 



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eonick landing place in Canaan. Melvin of Dearborn's 
company comments on the night as cold and rainy. They 
reached the Falls in the morning, carried their boats over 
the carrying-place, which Melvin calls forty rods, and 
Haskell one hundred, and most of the division camped on 
Tuesday five miles up the river at Norridgewock. 

Captain Dearborn's company had a different exper- 
ience. They camped with the others Monday night at 
Canaan, where the Captain says it rained very fast most 
part of the night, and the next day's trip and carry 
proved so strenuous that they camped Tuesday night, 
October 3d at the Falls on the main west of the Island. 
Captain Dearborn says of this day's program: "Pro- 
ceeded np the river over very bad falls and shoals such as 
seemed almost impossible to cross, but after much fatigue 
and abundance of difficulty we arrived at Schouliegan 
Falls, where there is a carrying-place of sixty rods. Here we 
hauled up our bateaux and caulked them as well as we 
could, they being very leaky by being knocked about 
among the rocks, and not being well built at first. We 
carried across and loaded our bateaux and put across the 
river and encamped. This day's march was not above 
three miles. From here I sent back two sick men." 

The fourth and rear division of the army was com- 
manded by Lieutenant Colonel Enos, and was made up of 
the companies of Captains Williams, .McCobb and Scott. 
With them went a company of "artificers" or carpenters 
from Gardinerston, led by Captain Colbum. Ephraim 
Squier of Scott's company, who was the only journalist 
of this division, tells us that they reached Skowhegan 
Falls earl}^ in the day of October 4th, carried by, and 
camped. The morning of the 5th they set out early, and 
went up the river six miles. 

The surgeon of the army. Dr. Senter, traveling by 
himself, gives a rather puzzling account of his experiences 
in passing through Skowhegan. He carried his medical 



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stores and baggage in his own bateau, his boat's crew 
consisting of three Englishmen, sailors, an old Swiss, and 
a young Scotchman. In his camp about seven miles above 
Fort Halifax he waited over Sunday, according to orders, 
for the rear division. Monday a messenger came for him 
to come up river to see a sick soldier who was at Peter 
Heywood's. He started at once, but on account of the 
rapids could not get through that night. Early Tuesday 
morning he reached his patient at Canaan, and mentions 
that he found there numbers of the army. It Avill be re- 
membered that the second and third divisions had camped 
there. 

If we can understand the doctor's accounts after 
leaving Old Canaan he went up the Wesserunsett stream 
as far as the falls at what is now Malbon's Mills, carried 
across the elbow to the branch of the stream coming from 
southward, following this as far as it extended south, and 
then carried down along about where the present road goes 
into the river at the Great Eddy. 

The doctor writes, starting from ' ' Mr. HoM^ard 's : " 
"The water now grew very rapid, three miles above was 
the falls called by the name of Wassarunskeig, ere we came 
to these falls. The river formed an elbow, across which 
there was a carrying place. This I passed over, to view 
the falls, though did not move my baggage, etc. till next 
day. The rear division was still behind. 

Wednesday 4 — As the rapids afforded but a tedious 
route of three miles by water round, I chose rather to take 
the advantage of the carrying place which was two and a 
half miles only, accordingly I had boat and baggage car- 
ried over by land to the foot of the falls, where we \yere 
obliged to put in and cross over the opposite side, ere we 
could carry by the falls. These were a very high water- 
fall, and exceeding difficult carrying by. After backing 
all the boats, provisions, camp equipage, etc., over, we again 
advanced up the river. Not far had we advanced ere we 



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came to a fall called Scunkhegon. With a great deal 
of difficulty we passed this, but not without coming very 
nigh losing one of my hands. After passing these, 

I proceeded about half a mile and tented." 

Besides the officers before mentioned, there were sev- 
eral young men in the Expedition who afterwards became 
distinguished. The surgeon, whose peculiar excursion has 
just been spoken of, Dr. Isaac Senter, had a career of 
eminence as physician and writer at Newport, R. I. The 
Chaplain, Rev. Samuel Spring, was for many years minis- 
ter at Newburyport, and was one of the founders of And- 
over Theological Seminary, and of the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 

Several volunteer officers were attached to the Ex- 
pedition, the most notable being Aaron Burr, then a lad 
of nineteen, afterwards the brilliant and disloyal vice- 
president of the United States. 

Two Penobscot Indians were with the army at one 
point, and there were other Indians at different times 
who were helpful, especially for carrying messages. Tradi- 
tion tells about a young Indian girl, Jacataqua the hunt- 
ress and her dog, and has woven a romantic story around 
her and Aaron Burr. 

A few local traditions have been handed down in 
Skowhegan in connection with the passage of the Expedi- 
tion. One of them is that in the evening, either on Great 
Island, which lay opposite the Old Canaan clearings, or 
on Skowhegan Island at the Falls, the officers and soldiers 
were amusing themselves with wrestling, and a negro 
servant of one of the officers succeeded in throwing every- 
one he encountered. At last Captain Dearborn took him 
in hand, and laid him immediately on his back. 

Another tradition is that a flagstaff was set up and 
a flag raised on the Island at the Falls during the passage 
of the troops. The tradition has come down in both 
families that Isaac Smith and Eli Weston helped rear 



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the flagstaff on the spot where the present High School 
building stands. What sort of flag may have been car- 
ried by Arnold's army we have little means of guessing — 
not yet surely Betsy Ross's banner of thirteen stripes and 
thirteen stars. But it is worth remembering that the 
first American flag to be raised in this town floated upon 
the autumn breezes above the Island in 1775. 

Many settlers from along the way may have gone 
with the Expedition for a part or the whole of the jour- 
ney, — tradition mentions several from different places. 
From Canaan Joseph Weston and two of his sons, Eli and 
William, then boys of fifteen and twelve, accompanied the 
army as far as beyond the carries at Skowhegan Falls and 
Norridgewock Falls, giving assistance in transporting the 
bateaux and their contents. From there Joseph returned 
and having taken a severe cold from the exposure, he died 
of a fever October 16th. For the assistance he rendered 
to the Arnold Expedition he is held in honor by us as a 
Revolutionary hero who gave his life for his country. 

So the army went on its way up the Kennebec ; but 
Skowhegan Island was to see a part of them again. The 
division of Lieutenant Colonel Enos, the rear division of 
the army, which had constantly lagged behind, and had 
had always the easier part of following where others had 
opened the trail, lost heart amid the hardships of wilder- 
ness and swamp and flood, and turned back from upper 
Dead River, abandoning their comrades, taking with them 
the sick and disabled and (they were bitterly accused of it 
by the others), more than their share of the extra provisions 
which had been their special charge. It was the second 
of November, just four weeks and a day after they had 
passed through on their upward journey, that Colonel 
Enos' division carried across Skowhegan Island on their 
inglorious return. A humiliating return it must have 
been, without honor along the way, and with a court-mar- 
tial awaiting their commander at Cambridge, which ac- 



C21) 



quitted him on the unrefuted testimony of his own men, but 
did not rehabilitate his reputation. 

The other part of the army returned no more; but 
struggled on, past the carries of Norridsewock Falls (at 
Madison) and Carratunk Falls (at Solon) to Great Carry- 
ing-place, past the arduous portages and cedar swamps of 
the Twelve-mile Carry, to lose their way in the mazes of 
Dead River in flood, and to lose it again among the pre- 
cipices and in the frozen morasses of the Terrible Carry 
across the Height of Land, to suffer untold hardships from 
frost and famine, to leave many of their comrades dead 
along the dismal trail, and to be rescued themselves only 
by the wild dash of their Colonel down the boiling Chaud- 
iere after provisions. Then came the rapid journey across 
or along the shore of Lake Megantic and down the Chaud- 
iere to the shore of the St. Lawrence, whence they be- 
held upon the other side the grim ramparts of Quebec. 
There followed the desperate a,ssault of that fatal New 
Year's morning, and after that for part of Arnold's men 
the siege amid the snows of a Canadian winter; and for 
part, prison and pestilence, and weary languishing, from 
which the remnant — pitifully small — was to l)e carried back 
in British ships to their own country one full year after 
their high-hearted setting forth. 

If the Expedition to Quebec had resulted in success 
instead of failure, it might have given another state to the 
Union, and to our flag another stripe ; and it would have 
crowned its leader with a laurel wreath of fame which 
must, one would think, have kept him true to his early 
loyalty. 

General Washington WTote to Colonel Arnold: "It 
is not in the power of any man to command success, but 
you have done more — you have deserved it." 

The historic event which we celebrate today represents 
the only time Skowhegan has been touched by the gregl 
current of national history, of world history, the orly 



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time — may it always so remain — an army bound for war 
has traveled through our peaceful community. It is fit- 
ting that we should suitably mark our one historic event, 
the passage of the Arnold Expedition, and that the Daugh- 
ters of the American Revolution, an organization formed 
to perpetuate the memory of the heroes of our war for inde- 
pendence should raise the memorial. We have chosen for the 
purpose a granite boulder of characteristic Maine structure, 
with large outstanding feldspar crystals, which the resist- 
less force of primeval glaciers rent from its mountain in 
the rugged region between the Kennebec and the Dead 
River along the trail of Arnold's march, and bore south- 
ward to deposit ready for our use on Mr. Levi W. Weston 's 
farm. 

With massive granite and enduring bronze we com- 
memorate the valor of those heroes of the Revolution who 
in the morasses and mountains of the northern Maine 
wilderness, in the icy waters of the Dead River and the 
Chaudiere, and before the barriers and in the prisons of 
Quebec, gave the last full measure of devotion for Ameri- 
can Independence. We commemorate the heroes of the 
past that they may serve as inspiration to the heroes of 
the future. May these serve their country as devotedly, 
not in war, but in peace. 



AUTHORITIES 



Allen, William — Account of Arnold's Expedition. 
Maine Hist. Soc. Colls. Vol. 1. History of Norridge- 
wock, Norridgewock 1849. 

Arnold, Col. Benedict — Journal, in Smith's ''Ar- 
nold's March," appendix. Letters. Maine Hist. Soc. Colls. 
Vol. 1. 

CoDMAN, John 2d — Aniold's Expedition to Quebec 
N. Y. 1902. 



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Dearborn, Capt. Henry — Journal Mass. Hist. Soc. 
Proceedings. Ser. 2, Vol. 2. 

Hanson, John Wesley — History of Norridgewock and 
Canaan. Boston 1849. History of Gardiner, Gardiner, 
1852. 

Haskell, Caleb — Diary. Newburyport. 1881. 

Hendricks, Capt. William — Journal. Penn. Archives. 
Ser. 2, Vol. 15. 

Henry, John Joseph — Journal. Penn. Archives. Ser. 
2, Vol. 15. 

Humphrey, William — Journal, MS. Extracts in 
Smith's "Arnold's March." 

Meigs, Maj. Return J. — Journal. Mass. Hist. Soc. 
Colls. Ser. 2, Vol. 2. 

Melvin, James — Journal. Portland. 1902, 

MoNTRESOR, Col. John — Journal. Maine Hist. Soc. 
Colls. Vol. 1. 

MoRisoN, George — Journal. MS. in Harvard Coll. Lib- 
(rary. 

Oswald, Capt. Eleazer — Journal. Force's American 
Archives. 

Senter^ Dr. Isaac — Journal. Hist. Soc. of Penn. Phila. 
1846. 

Smith, Justin — Arnold's March from Cambridge to 
Quebec. N. Y. 1903. 

Squier, Ephraim — Diary. Magazine of American His- 
tory. Vol. 2. 

Stocking, Abner — Journal. Catskill. 1810. 

Thayer, Capt. Simeon — Journal. Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc. 
Vol. 6. 

Ware, Joseph — Journal. N. E. Hist, and Gen. Regis- 
ter. Vol. 6. 

Weston, Eben — Early Settlers of Canaan. MS. in 
Skowhegan Public Library. 

Wild, Ebenezer — Journal. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceed- 
ings. Ser. 2, Vol. 2. 



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